Four tops, SM and BSM by ATLAS and CMS, including EFT interpretations

This article presents the observation of four-top-quark (tttt) production in proton-proton collisions by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the CERN LHC. The analysis is performed using data samples collected by both experiments separately at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV during 2016-2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb^-1 and 138 fb^-1 by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations respectively. Events containing two leptons with the same charge or at least three leptons (electrons or muons) are selected. Event kinematics are used to separate signal from background through a multivariate discriminant, and dedicated control regions are used to constrain the dominant backgrounds. The observed (expected) significance of the measured tttt signal with respect to the standard model background-only hypothesis is 6. 1 (4. 3) standard deviations by the ATLAS and 5. 6 (4. 9) standard deviations by CMS experiment. The tttt production cross section is measured to be 22. 5^+6. 6-₅. ₅ fb and 17. 7^+4. 4-₄. ₀ fb by the ATLAS and CMS experiment respectively, in agreement with the available standard model predictions. The limits are set by the ATLAS experiment on the three-top-quark production cross section, being an irreducible background not measured previously, and constraints are obtained the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling and Wilson coeficients corresponding to the effective field theory operators sensitive to the tttt production.